Jon Johansen Trial

Jon Johansen, one of the three people of a group
creating the DVD decryption program
DeCSS
(note DeCSS
history is not at all the common media portrayal of the lone
teen cracker breaking Hollywood's codes, no disrespect intended),
is now undergoing his second criminal trial. I just mentioned
he's in fact one of three people in the group - the other two are
staying anonymous. And as I say, it should thus be screamingly
obvious why they are staying anonymous - including the German
programmer "Ham" who actually did that particular DeCSS
reverse-engineering.

Jon Johansen's been facing criminal prosecution for around
four years now. My heart goes out to him on that point. A
criminal trial is one of the most stressful things a person can face.
And he wasn't the critical decryption programmer either, keep that in mind
(again, no offense meant). People just don't get it, whenever I talk
about how I don't want to go through something like that myself. It's
an abstraction. They see him being made into a hero, at least getting a
defense, and they tell me I'll be a hero too. But I've never, ever,
gotten a defense, quite the opposite. The lack of support drove me to
quit.
And these sorts of risks are part of the reason.